> Do you have many examples of this actually happening that you could share?
If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material", I have one here [0], with the challenge posed and plagiarized response at [1], found via [2].
One wonders how often the "Don't plagiarize, make no mistakes about this!" instruction fails and the LLMs include nontrivial chunks of other people's work into what they emit.
[0] <https://infosec.exchange/@zzt@mas.to/117134157775929932>
[1] <https://mas.to/@zzt/117122289150514171>
[2] <https://infosec.exchange/@david_chisnall/117134446424182178>
> If by "this" you mean "an LLM [reproducing] copyrighted material
No. I have absolutely no doubt that happens, and I'm not defending it or encouraging it.
My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time, if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room.
I'm not aware of it happening yet (someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM) and I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now.
> ...someone trying to enforce copyright on code that was put in production via an LLM...
AIUI, in the US something that's entirely machine-generated is not eligible for copyright protection. If one could demonstrate that that machine-generated output is plagiarized human work and were rich enough to bring it to court, and able to wait five to ten years for the outcome, I have to believe that the usual copyvio rules would apply because that's not machine-generated output, it's straight-up unauthorized copying performed by a machine.
> My point is whilst it technically might be illegal and happening all the time...
If it's illegal, it's illegal. Refusal to enforce the law doesn't make the action any less illegal. Criminals who get away with their crimes are still criminals. [0]
> ... if it's unenforceable or sets a precedence that would severely break the business world, there's every chance nobody would dare bring it to a court room.
Or the highest court of the land would find a way to misinterpret "related" historical decisions to make the crime retroactively legal, yeah.
> ...I would have thought if it did, we would all know about the precedence now.
I'm not so sure. For one thing, the courts move really slowly when they're not very motivated to address something. For another, news that paints the twin VC darlings and their "industry" as villainous has a tendency to get buried by any one of a billion hype pieces or minor scandals that they have waiting in the wings.
[0] To bystanders who might wish to retort: Yes, I'm very aware that some things that are illegal should not be. I'm also aware that some things that are not illegal very much should be.